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“We really like where we are. We have a process and a plan in place, and everything is going to — like, you cannot control everything, because there’s things that are… you know…”
Jordi Fernández’s voice trails off for a moment, but I do know. We all know. Fernández, near the end of a two-minute answer, is pleading with his eyes: This is as direct as I can be. Eventually, he lands the plane: “Obviously, I want to win every single game, but playing these 25 to compete and then, this summer and how we structure this summer is the best thing. It’s the biggest summer of our lives.”
Fernández used that line last season, but it still hits home. This is, after all, the summer that the Brooklyn Nets are supposed to transition from tanking to ascending, making one high draft pick and scouring the free agent/trade market for win-now players. Now 30 games under .500 in March, there’s no question that continuing to lose games is in Brooklyn’s best long-term interest, but it won’t be for long.
That’s all Jordi Fernández is trying to say, reassuring Nets fans that the team can get blown out by 30 once a week and still be on track, particularly if you mix in some close losses and flashy performances from the rookies. But he’s probably reassuring himself too.
Kenny Atkinson can relate. He posted a 48-116 record in his first two seasons as Nets Head Coach (Fernández is currently 41-101): “You love to stay process-oriented and stick with the process. But you’re going home and you’re taking that L, after the game, it’s hard, especially when they start stacking up. Everybody says, ‘Well, don’t worry.’ Of course you worry if you’re a competitor.”
Atkinson’s first Nets teams were certainly devoid of talent, but the franchise famously didn’t own their draft picks either. There was zero upside to the losing, though it’s not like Fernández takes any immediate solace in ping-pong balls either…
But Atkinson sees the silver lining: “Once you break through, even that third year, when we broke through and made the playoffs, it was almost doubly rewarding, because you went through these real struggles and tough times. And I was like — man, I’ll never forget when we clinched the playoffs, it was like you’re winning the championship. It was crazy, because you can look back at year one, I think we lost like 27 of 29 … it was, like, insane: ‘Are we ever gonna win another game?’”
Things aren’t that bleak this time around. Players and coaches won’t (can’t) admit it, but pressure dissolves when you’re expected to lose. Consider the locker-room reaction to Danny Wolf’s poorly missed free-throw at the end of the loss to Atkinson’s Cleveland Cavaliers…
Of course, it helps when the veterans (MPJ, Claxton, Mann) feel confident in their contract situations, while the rookies and second-chance warriors are starving for a chance to simply get on the court.
Danny Wolf, despite the rough attempt at an intentionally missed free-throw, was in a jovial mood after his career-best 23/9/5 statline on Sunday afternoon. Perhaps that helped him find silver linings in the loss: “I don’t want to say we’re losing team. Obviously, our record is 15-45 but we’re the youngest team in the NBA, and there’s a lot of valuable lessons. And I hate saying you can learn from a loss, because it stinks and it sucks, and losing as a competitor is one of the worst feelings, but with such a young group, I think just the resilience, the fight when you lose to a team by four that you lost to by 40 a couple weeks ago speaks volumes to improvement.”
Now that’s a player who, in the era of player-podcasts, has heard ad nauseam and now understands that the NBA is a business. Sometimes, the business entails losing. It’s also a player in lock-step with his head coach, at least in terms of public messaging.
“Coming here and feeling that we can go up against anybody has to be very important,” said Fernández. “And if you’re up ten, you want to be up 20. If you’re down 20, you want to be down ten. And those things have to matter. We have to be competitive. And it’s not — we’re not gonna, you know, turn a switch and all of a sudden we’re gonna be there. It’s gonna be a process.”
Playing the NBA Draft Lottery probabilities remains the priority, but it’s easy to see where Fernández is coming from. The young players on this roster are expected to contribute to winning next season. When you’re 15-45, executing ATOs may not be as important as the difference between the first and fifth overall pick, but it matters a little.
For all the incessant hand-wringing over the NBA’s tanking “problem,” I quite enjoy this time of year, full of low-stress hoops where a 23-year-old on a 10-day contract like Grant Nelson can stir excitement:
Michael Porter Jr. explained it well: “The motivation to make the playoffs might not be there, but the motivation individually, as a player, as a person, to go out there and work on my skills, my leadership skills, and my individual things within the team, that’s still there. So you can’t just throw away a season because you’re not making the playoffs.”
The 2025-26 Nets have six weeks remaining on their schedule, six weeks where Noah Clowney’s 3-point shooting, Drake Powell’s ball-handling, and Egor Dëmin’s driving — among other individual skills — are far more important than the scoreboard. Though I contend that this isn’t as depressing as it’s often made out to be, Jordi Fernández and the Nets want you to know that it’s almost over, that the next chapter is almost here, and they can’t wait to get it started.
“It’s very exciting, and everybody should feel the excitement of the next step: a big 25 games for everybody, and a big, big, big summer.” — Jordi Fernández